4. [Nyssa aquatica] Marsh. Cotton Gum. Tupelo Gum.
Leaves oblong-ovate, acute or acuminate and often long-pointed at apex, cuneate, rounded, or subcordate at base, entire or remotely and irregularly angulate-toothed, the teeth often tipped with a long slender mucro, when they unfold light red and coated below and on the petioles with pale tomentum and pubescent above, especially on the broad thick midrib, and at maturity thick and firm, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, pale and more or less downy-pubescent on the lower surface, 5′—7′ long and 2′—4′ wide, with 10—12 pairs of primary veins forked near the margins and connected by conspicuous cross veins; petioles stout, grooved, hairy, enlarged at base, 1½′—2½′ in length. Flowers appearing in March and April on a long slender hairy peduncle from the axil of an inner scale of the terminal bud; staminate in dense capitate clusters, their peduncle furnished near the middle and occasionally at apex with long linear ciliate bractlets; calyx-tube cup-shaped, obscurely 5-toothed, one third as long as the oblong erect petals rounded at apex and much shorter than the stamens; pistillate solitary, surrounded by 2—4 strap-shaped scarious ciliate bractlets often ½′ long and more or less united below into an involucral cup; calyx-tube oblong and much longer than the ovate minute spreading petals; stamens included, with small mostly fertile anthers; style stout, tapering, reflexed above the middle, and revolute into a close coil. Fruit ripening early in the autumn, on slender drooping stalks 3′—4′ in length, oblong or slightly obovoid, crowned with the pointed remnants of the style, dark purple, marked by conspicuous scattered pale dots, and 1′ long, with thick tough skin and thin acid flesh; stone obovoid, rounded at the narrow apex, pointed at base, flattened, light brown or nearly white, and about 10-ridged, the ridges acute and wing-like, with thin separable margins, and sometimes united by short intermediate ridges.
A tree, 80°—100° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter above the greatly enlarged tapering base, comparatively small spreading branches forming a narrow oblong or pyramidal head, stout pithy branchlets dark red and coated with pale tomentum when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous or nearly so, and in their first winter light or bright red-brown and marked by small scattered pale lenticels and by the conspicuous elevated nearly orbicular leaf-scars displaying the ends of 3 large fibro-vascular bundles, and thick corky roots. Winter-buds: terminal nearly globose, with broad ovate light chestnut-brown scales keeled on the back and rounded and apiculate at apex, those of the inner ranks accrescent and at maturity oblong-ovate or oblong-obovate, rounded at apex, 1′ or more long, and bright yellow; axillary minute, obtuse, nearly imbedded in the bark. Bark of the trunk about ¼′ thick, dark brown, longitudinally furrowed, and roughened on the surface by small scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, difficult to split, light brown or often nearly white, with thick sapwood sometimes composed of more than 100 layers of annual growth; used in the manufacture of wooden-ware, broom-handles, and wooden shoes, and largely for fruit and vegetable boxes. The wood of the roots is sometimes employed instead of cork for the floats of nets.
Distribution. Deep swamps inundated during a part of every year; coast region of the Atlantic states from southeastern Virginia to northern Florida, through the Gulf states to the valley of the Nueces River, Texas, and through Arkansas and southern and southeastern Missouri to western Kentucky and Tennessee, and to the valley of the lower Wabash River, Illinois; of its greatest size in the Cypress-swamps of western Louisiana and eastern Texas.
LII. CORNACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets, scaly buds, and alternate or opposite deciduous leaves, without stipules. Flowers perfect or polygamo-diœcious; calyx 4 or 5-toothed, petals 4 or 5; stamens inserted on the margin of the epigynous disk; anthers oblong; introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 1 or 2-celled; ovule solitary, suspended from the interior angle of the apex of the cell, anatropous; micropyle superior. Fruit drupaceous, 1 or 2-seeded. Seed oblong-ovoid; seed-coat membranaceous; embryo in copious fleshy albumen; cotyledons foliaceous; radicle terete, turned toward the hilum.
The widely distributed Cornel family with ten genera, more numerous in temperate than in tropical regions, has arborescent representatives of the genus Cornus in North America.
1. CORNUS L. Dogwood.
Trees and shrubs, with astringent bark, opposite or rarely alternate deciduous leaves conduplicate or involute in the bud. Flowers small, perfect, white, greenish white or yellow; calyx-tube minutely 4-toothed, the teeth valvate in the bud; disk pulvinate, depressed in the centre, or obsolete; petals 4, valvate in the bud, oblong-ovate, inserted on the margin of the disk; stamens 4, alternate with the petals; filaments slender, exserted; ovary 2-celled; style exserted, simple, columnar, crowned with a single capitate or truncate stigma; raphe dorsal. Fruit ovoid or oblong; flesh thin and succulent; nut bony or crustaceous, 2-celled, 2 or sometimes 1-seeded. Seed compressed; embryo straight or slightly incurved.